Saturday, December 22, 2012

The largest headline on the print Richmond Times-Dispatch
this morning, covering more than half of the entire width of the front page,
reads “NRA calls for armed guards in schools.” The number two story in the
Washington Post this morning (top of the left column) reads “NRA, Put armed
police in schools.” Last night on the NBC evening news the lead story involved
footage of a press conference held by NRA executive vice-president Wayne
LaPierre rejecting any additional gun laws and advocating the placement of
armed (that is with guns) guards in all of the nation’s schools. The press
conference by the National Rifle Association took place one week after the
slaughter of 26 people, including 20 young children, at a Connecticut
elementary school.

If I were a visitor from another planet and read these
newspapers and watched television last night, I would naturally assume that the
NRA was our national legislature and that Wayne LaPierre was a high-ranking
elected official—perhaps the president. Why else would we pay so much attention
to the views of an organization or of one man? The alien maven would be shocked
to learn that the NRA was a lobbying group for gun manufacturers and that Wayne
LaPierre had been elected by only a few people.

The National Rifle Association has been powerful in our
national politics for a long time. As I made clear nearly five years ago (OnGuns—An Ode in Prose) over the years the NRA has morphed from an organization
of sportsmen and gun collectors to a lobby for the gun industry. It has taken a
“no-compromise” position with respect to gun legislation and has convinced
hundreds of members of the Congress and state legislatures that any support for
even the most modest control on the purchase of firearms will result in their
being defeated for reelection. It has also convinced its members that the Federal
Government is devoted to taking away all their guns.

But, dear reader, is it not possible that all of us have
given the NRA all this power? Even the proponents of controls on the purchase
of firearms have spent most of the last week attacking the NRA in paper and
electronic print. They have even gone so far as to hold the NRA culpable for
the murders in Connecticut last week. Apparently, it is much easier to create
and attack a bogey man than to deal directly with the complex issues raised by
gun control.

What if, loyal reader, we treated the NRA differently? What
if, for example, we chose to ignore it? Can you imagine what would have
happened yesterday if the NRA held its press conference and Wayne LaPierre came
to the podium and the room was empty? Think of it—no reporters, no cameras, no
protesters. What if, regardless what it said, the media chose to not report
anything about the NRA? What if I had watched the evening news last night and
saw stories that gave no attention to Mr. LaPierre’s statement? What if the
newspapers this morning ran no stories about the NRA’s proposal to put more
guns into our schools? (Oh, I know what you are saying, what about the First
Amendment? Reader, the First Amendment guarantees the NRA and Mr. LaPierre the
right to say anything they want; it does not require us to listen to them.) Is
it not possible that if we treated the NRA this way it would shrink from the
tiger it wants us to believe it is to a snarling but powerless kitten?